America in God’s Plan – By Design
America in God’s Plan
Together Church | Pastor Jack Clay
July 6, 2025 | Series: By Design
Good morning – I hope you have had a wonderful week celebrating the birth of our nation. For the believer in Christ these are exciting days as we look forward to the days ahead and the eventual return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. His ways are perfect and He is working all things together for His glory and our good. It is important for us as Americans, yes even Christians from America, to remember what the Lord has done in our nation and to give Him thanks for His mercy and grace shown to us. One of my favorite presidents – John Quincy Adams spoke of the importance of what happened on Independence Day, July 4, 1776. Listen to his words regarding our nation:
John Quincy Adams – July 4, 1837 –
“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth?”
The words of John Quincy Adams and many others tell a story of why America was founded and what part it was to play in God’s Plan for the Ages. We know as we study the scripture, that God’s work always has purpose and plan. Everything He does is perfect. He is the all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent God who is holy, gracious and merciful. What He does, He does for His glory and the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. His justice is without partiality and all that He does is good.
Out of His love He created the earth and all that is in it, creating man in His own image and putting him on this earth to care for it and to enjoy fellowship with Him. However, man chose to sin against God and fellowship with God was broken. But God, in His infinite wisdom and His everlasting love made the way that fellowship with man might be restored. Sin had tainted man’s capacity, ability, and will to come to God. However, God sent His Son to live a perfect, sinless life, die a substitutionary death as the sacrifice for our sin, and then God raised Him from the dead after three days conquering sin, death, and the grave. With the curse of sin broken, all those who would trust in the work of Christ would have their relationship with God restored. Jesus Christ, now would intercede before God the Father on behalf of all who would come to Him in faith and one day those who know the Lord will die and go to be with the Lord, or, the Lord Jesus will return to this earth and take His children home to be with Him forever.
THAT’S GREAT NEWS! THAT’S THE BEST NEWS THIS WORLD COULD EVER HEAR? BUT HOW DO WE TELL THE WORLD OF THIS GREAT NEWS? WHAT HAS GOD DONE SO THAT THE WORLD WOULD KNOW OF HIS LOVE AND WHAT HE HAS DONE SO THAT MAN MIGHT BE RIGHT WITH HIM ONCE AGAIN!
Remember God does everything with plan, purpose and order. He is meticulous in detail, not leaving out anything necessary so that His message can be spread and His kingdom advance. He who knows the very number of hairs on your head, who knows if a sparrow falls to the ground, who knows your every need even before you ask – planned everything necessary for our redemption and for the advancement of His kingdom!
Let’s look at various nations, especially America, and see how God has used them in the fulfilment of His plan. As we do that let’s remember these scriptures from God’s Word:
Psalm 67:1,2 –
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.”
Isaiah 55:10, 11 –
“For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Matthew 28:19a –
“Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…”
Matthew 24:14 –
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony of all nations and then the end will come.”
Although we will be looking at several empires or nations, it is a very interesting study to see how God has, is, and will be using various nations to fulfill His ultimate plan. Many nations, at different times have been used by God to do different things. We will only be looking at a few, very familiar empires or nations today in our study.
God used:
The Greek Empire – Universal Language at the time Christ was born The Roman Empire – Massive Road Systems, which would be used to carry the Gospel to all nations
The Nation of Israel – Christ the Messiah
The Nation of England – 1382 John Wycliffe the Morningstar of the Reformation – the
Bible printed in the language of the common man –
“This Bible is for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Almost immediately following Wycliffe’s translation of the whole Bible, God began to call forth men to develop the many scientific and economic fields which would be necessary to enable man to sail the seas, explore, and finally settle the land across the vast Atlantic Ocean.
The Nation of Germany –
- 1455 The invention of Johan Gutenberg’s moveable type printing press
- 1517 Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation
The Bible would become the greatest single influence in the founding and development of America. Let’s look at the influence the Bible had in the formation of our nation.
The Nation of America
- 1620 The Pilgrims & the Geneva Bible
- 1630 John Winthrop – A city set on a hill . . .
- 1636 Harvard established to train preachers of the Gospel
- 1639 Thomas Hooker & The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
- 1647 The Old Deluder Satan Law in Massachusetts & Connecticut
- 1663 Jon Eliot (The Apostle to the Indians) & The Bible in the Algonquin Language
- 1730’s – 1770’s The first Great Awakening – George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards
- 1768 John Witherspoon becomes president of College of New Jersey (Princeton)
- 1776 The Declaration of Independence
- 1782 Aitken Bible published by order of Continental Congress
- 1789 The Constitution of the United States of America
- 1810 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established
- 1812 Adoniram & Nancy Judson move to Burma
- 1816 American Bible Society established
- 1845 International Mission Board established
- 1942 Wycliffe Bible Translators
- 1950 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association founded
- 1985 Reaching Souls International established
What did God do through His Word and by His Spirit to make the United States the great missionary nation upon the earth?
He blessed us with LIBERTY!
Liberty is not the freedom to do what I want, but rather the freedom to do what is right according to God’s WordLiberty is God-given not government-granted Liberty is first internal, then external
As God gave individuals internal liberty through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, that liberty began to take on an external expression through the exercise of religious, civil, and economic liberty.
As America sought to build a nation built on biblical principles, to honor God by fulfilling the mission of spreading the gospel throughout the world, she was blessed with prosperity. The purpose for that prosperity was to advance the gospel of the kingdom of Christ. But where God begins a work, Satan tries to destroy that work. Satan’s plan is to enslave and put into bondage. He does this by making us think we are the ones who made our wealth. He uses the pride and the greediness of men to get our focus off God’s calling for us and cause us to involve ourselves in that which will eventually cause the corrosion of our external liberties.
He appeals to the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life which are not of God. He deceives us into thinking that we don’t really need to live by God’s Word, the most important thing is that we just be happy and get what we want when we want it.
Dr. Jedidiah Morse – April 25, 1799 Election Sermon –
“To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, of political and social happiness which mankind now enjoy. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism.”
Psalm 2:1-4 –
“Why do the nations rage and the people of the earth imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.”
Psalm 2 pictures the great conflict that is taking place among the nations today because of the ever-increasing wickedness of man. Men, in their depravity, hate the Lord and His people and seek to destroy any influence that there might be because of Christianity. Satan has deceived many into thinking that freedom is found in every person doing what they think is right while knowing that that way is the way of death. Jesus is coming again soon! The Bible says that one day “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. To those who know the Lord, this will be a time of great rejoicing. To those who do not know the Lord, it will be a dreadful day of judgement.
Nations are made up of people – those who have received Jesus as Lord and those who have rejected Him. At the great White Throne Judgement the Lord will judge those who reject Him and cast them into the lake of fire where they will live eternally separated from the Lord. But those who have surrendered their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ will live eternally with the Lord. One day the Bible tells us that there will be a new heaven and a new earth with a new Jerusalem. There will be no need for light there because the Lord Jesus will light the city and the scripture says:
“By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations… then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the river,the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him.”